Adult Blattodea and Diptera meet 6⁄8 criteria to a high or very high level of confidence, constituting strong evidence for pain (see Table 1, below). This is stronger evidence for pain than Birch et al. (2021) found for decapod crustaceans (5/8), which are currently protected via the UK Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022.
My current credence in the ability of decapod crustaceans to feel pain is really high, so seeing that there’s more evidence for Blattodea and Diptera (on these criteria) is huge, thank you!
I agree, but I feel it’s very depressing above everything else. Saying:
this is huge
feels so wrong to me. It’s like finding out there are 10 million people being tortured and saying “wow, great discovery, great research”. Of course it is great research but it just sound so wrong. Every extra square filled out in green should probably feel like reading about another 10.000 people dying in Ukraine. Of course it is very hard to feel empathy for insects on an emotional level but I guess we can try.
I also felt a bit queasy when I read it, but I don’t think that it is a bad reaction. When an area is so neglected that it’s hard to find great reviews, being enthusiastic when someone does some very good work is probably a good first step. Also, even though some emotional empathy can be a good way to stay motivated, too much of it would be crushing, especially when we talk about the suffering of billions or trillions of beings. I don’t think that feeling enough empathy should be a goal. But I understand your feelings, and they make sense. I’m also mostly sad.
This is so cool
Highlighting:
My current credence in the ability of decapod crustaceans to feel pain is really high, so seeing that there’s more evidence for Blattodea and Diptera (on these criteria) is huge, thank you!
I agree that this is huge, but it’s also depressing. A lot more needs to be done.
I agree, but I feel it’s very depressing above everything else. Saying:
feels so wrong to me. It’s like finding out there are 10 million people being tortured and saying “wow, great discovery, great research”. Of course it is great research but it just sound so wrong. Every extra square filled out in green should probably feel like reading about another 10.000 people dying in Ukraine. Of course it is very hard to feel empathy for insects on an emotional level but I guess we can try.
I also felt a bit queasy when I read it, but I don’t think that it is a bad reaction. When an area is so neglected that it’s hard to find great reviews, being enthusiastic when someone does some very good work is probably a good first step. Also, even though some emotional empathy can be a good way to stay motivated, too much of it would be crushing, especially when we talk about the suffering of billions or trillions of beings. I don’t think that feeling enough empathy should be a goal. But I understand your feelings, and they make sense. I’m also mostly sad.